WIFE WANTED (A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance) (12 page)

Phoebe grinned as she texted back that she couldn’t wait to see it.

She might have to marry Mitch in the end, but until that time came, she was going to have some fun with this Ben. Why not, right? She was only going to live once. Might as well make it as exciting as possible before she threw her life into the hands of a man who didn’t notice her enough to realize she’d been gone.

“Phoebe?” Charlotte called out, and she glanced up. Doctor Chambers was right behind her, looking grimmer than he had the last time they’d spoken.

“How is she? Is it the tumor?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure at this point,” he said. “She was doing fine, and we were going to wake her up when suddenly she stopped breathing. We have her on a ventilator now and are monitoring her vitals, but I’m afraid she’s slipped into a coma.”

Phoebe slumped over in the chair as her vision blurred and her ears started ringing. Her mother, in a coma? This was not how she’d thought this night would go.

“Is there a chance to still do the surgery?” she whispered as Charlotte sat beside her, holding her upright.

He hesitated before sitting down on her other side. “There is, but we have a limited window in which to do it. And now, we have to wait until she comes out of the coma. If we try anything now, it could make the situation worse.”

“So what exactly are you saying?”

“The second she wakes up, we have to do the surgery or your mother’s chances of surviving are zero. I’m sorry, Phoebe, but I don’t have any better news to give you.”

All she could do was nod and stare at the window of her mother’s room. Fighting for her life and probably not even aware of it. Not understanding what her daughter was going to have to do in order to save her life. Would she ever know? There were days her mother had a hard time remembering who she was, let alone that her husband had died. Those had not been pleasant conversations.

It was nearly an hour later before Phoebe was finally able to stand and follow Charlotte to a private room where she could fill out some paperwork on her mother’s behalf.

When she reached the waiting room, Mitch hurried to her side.

“Is she doing all right?” he asked, glancing between her and Charlotte.

“Just take me home,” Phoebe whispered. “Please.”

“Of course,” Mitch said.

“Call me,” Charlotte told her when they reached the front doors. “I’ll be over the second you do.”

Phoebe nodded and let Mitch guide her back to the limo and follow her inside. He held her hand the whole way back to her place and even helped her get up the stairs to her door. He took the key from her when her fingers fumbled trying to get the damn thing in the lock.

“Thank you, Mitch. You didn’t have to do this,” she said.

“I said I’d make up for my behavior, and I fully intend to follow through. If you need anything, just call me, all right?”

She thanked him again, closed the door, and listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall.

Chapter 13

Phoebe hardly slept, thinking of her mom and what lay ahead of her. She went to work that morning in a daze. Thankfully, no one came down to the archives room to see her sitting at her desk, staring blankly at the wall. Work piled up, but it could wait a day. She wished she had more vacation days, but she’d used them all up. She could not afford to take any more time off.

Charlotte texted her throughout the day, but there were no good signs that her mom was coming out of the coma yet. Not that she expected anything different. She was just packing her bag to leave when the door opened.

“Sorry, just about to close up…oh, Mr. Yancey. Can I help you with something?”

He looked over, startled. “Ah, Ms. Baron. I thought you’d already left for the day.”

“No, not ‘til five, which it is now. Is there something you need from the archives?”

She watched as his hands twitched on the file folder he carried. He glanced around, running a hand through his hair and smiled—a very wide smile. “No, I was just going to drop this off on your desk for tomorrow morning. Nothing to fuss over.”

“If you’re sure?”

“Yes, quite. Please, head home. I’m sure I will see you tomorrow.”

“Okay, night, Mr. Yancey.”

“Good night.”

She strode past him and out the door, walking down until she hit the corner. After she turned, she waited a few seconds until she heard the door click shut. Glancing back, she saw he was still in there. Quietly, she crept back down the hall to the door and pressed her ear against it. He was typing on her keyboard. What was he looking for? He could’ve just asked her to look it up for him…or gotten it from his own computer. So why go all the way down to the archives room to search for something? She wanted to go in there and see, but what if he fired her? That file he took the other day…he’d been a bit freaked when she started asking questions about it. Was that what he was up to?

Her chair rolled across the floor, and she heard several drawers opening, followed by his cursing. A few seconds later, Phoebe rushed back down the hall and disappeared around the corner just as the door opened and Yancey stormed out, his steps heavy as he vanished in the other direction. The elevator dinged and she waited until he was gone before she headed back to the archives’ door.

She sat back down at the computer and tried to track whatever Yancey had been looking up. It took a few minutes, but she managed to find the file number. “What? That’s the file I gave him the other day…” She glanced down at her desk to find the files he’d had in his hand. “Why did he leave these behind?” She flipped through them, something she usually did not do, and frowned. “Empty, these are all blank pages. What the hell is he up to?”

Phoebe glanced towards the door, but she was alone down here. She rolled her chair over to the file cabinets and started to find the location of whatever Yancey had pulled out. When she found the right drawer where the original file had come from, she pulled it open and stared.

Half the drawer was empty.

Why had he taken all of those? They’d had nothing to do with the other files he’d wanted. At least, she didn’t think they did. It was a little past five now, which meant most everyone was heading home, including Yancey. She tossed her purse and coat back onto a chair in the corner and sat down at her computer. No one should be around to bother her now. Phoebe checked her computer records for the day before and found someone else had been searching for files that day, too, and the day before.

“What about my vacation week?” she whispered as she went all the way back to last Monday. “Son of a bitch!”

Yancey had been using her credentials to search and, from what she could tell, remove files from the archives. Files that dated back several months and even several years. She had no idea what he was up to but spent the next few hours tracking down every single one in the archives room. Half of them were missing or had blank pages in them, like the one she’d found on her desk. It was going to be a long night, trying to figure out what he was up to.

Around eight, her phone buzzed and she glanced at it. Mitch. “Hello,” she said when she picked it up.

“Hey, where you at? I’m at your place.”

“Uh…oh shit! I’m sorry, Mitch, I got held up at work with something.”

“The work excuse, eh.” He laughed when he said it, but Phoebe knew he was upset.

“Really, Mitch, I’m sorry. I think I just found out that my boss is trying to cover something up.”

“What? Do you need my help? I run in some pretty high up circles.”

Could she trust him with this? Who else would she even go to? Her pirate friend…she didn’t even know what he did for a living except he worked for some big company that dealt with investors…and with her boss. As far as she knew, Yancey had no connections to Mitch.

“I might. Can you meet me here? I’ll have to meet you at the front doors to let you in.”

“Sure, I’ll be there in ‘bout twenty minutes.”

Phoebe hung up and tried to accept the fact that she was trusting Mitch. He had taken her to the hospital and sat in the waiting room the whole time she dealt with Doctor Chambers and the paperwork. He’d been good so far. There was nothing to worry about with him helping her out. The nagging voice in the back of her head said she should pick a man and stay with him. Either her mysterious pirate or Mitch. She couldn’t hang onto both forever.

But she’d worry about that when it came to a head.

Twenty minutes later, she let Mitch in the doors and headed back down to the archives room. “So far, I’ve traced back records he’s tampered with from five years ago. I don’t know what he’s trying to do and I can’t figure out what these files all go to yet. It’s a bit technical.”

“Well, I don’t know how much help I can be. I’m just a money guy,” Mitch said as he picked up a file off a nearby pile. “Damn—these pages…you can tell they’ve been modified. Look at this shoddy job.”

“You can tell that easily?”

“I have to be able to tell the difference pretty quick in my line of work. Saves us from fraud,” he muttered as he picked up another file. “This one too. You need to show these to someone.”

“Yeah, but who? I don’t even know what these are about yet.”

Mitch sat down on the floor and started to flip through all the files in one stack. “These are research notes, or at least they were. The dates, though…these are newer files. Someone’s gone in and manually changed the year. Looks like a new program or something…I can’t make out too much of it. But this—this is a patent for that research. And I can tell you right now, at first glance, it looks legit, but this is fake.”

Phoebe took the pages from him and shook her head. “This makes no sense. Why would he do this? His company has been successful the past few years. They’ve put out good products. Why start faking things now?”

“I know he’s eyeing some pretty big fish. Poaching clients from his rivals, or trying to, at least.”

“And these fake documents do what then? Legitimize what he’s doing?”

“No, but if someone tries to sue him, he’ll have proof that his patents either came out first or that his research was being conducted first…unless his research
was
conducted first and someone else is trying to steal it from him. He might think it’s you pulling the files so he’s taking them first.” He glanced at all the files on the floor, separated into piles. At least six of them. “You need to take these to someone, Phoebe…anyone.”

“To who? I’m just a file girl. No one will believe me. Even my boss thinks I’m up to something.”

He reached out and held her hand. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry. If we’re going to be here for a while, I need to call my driver and let him know to take off. I’ll get us a cab later.”

She nodded, and he left the room, closing the door behind him.

***

Mitch waited until he was down the hall before he pulled out his cell and dialed a number. Three rings later, a voice finally answered. “Yeah, it’s me. We might have a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“That person you were worried about? Yeah, she’s onto you. A bit more curious than you anticipated, I think. Told her what it looks like, but I don’t think she’s going to scare easy.”

There was a string of angry curses on the other end. “I hired you for a reason, Harper. Find a way to take her out of the picture or this is not going to end well for you or your company. Do you understand me?”

“Don’t threaten me,” Mitch hissed, walking farther away from the door so Phoebe wouldn’t hear him. “I can bury you anytime I want to. And I will. If I go down for this shit, you’re going down with me. Along with your other accomplice. You need me, don’t forget that. Otherwise, Ms. Baron here is going to be the one standing in front of a jury, showing them all just how despicable a man you really are.”

“She won’t be if you do your damn job.”

“I am doing my job. I’m trying to keep her going in the right direction.”

“Look, you only have to keep this up until he folds, understand? Don’t get attached in case things turn ugly.”

Mitch’s hand curled into a fist. He wanted to punch the man in the face, but the wall sufficed for now. “I’m not getting attached,” he lied. “Don’t worry about me. As long as you hold up your end of the deal. That’s what I care about. I’m the one possibly throwing my life away here.”

“Not if you get rid of her.”

“That costs extra, and you can’t afford that. Not yet, anyway.”

“But when I can, the option will be open to you. Now, if there’s nothing else, I have business to attend to. I expect you both to clear out in the next hour. Distract her. That is, after all, your job.” There was a loud click as the man hung up, and Mitch was left holding his phone to his ear, fuming. This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. She wasn’t supposed to find the files this quickly.

A couple weeks back, he’d been called in to keep an eye on any potential threats within the company. Ms. Baron had popped up right after she started to ask questions about the wrong files. It didn’t take long to find a way into her life, and Mitch had set himself up on the dating website the second he saw her do the same. He was very thorough with those he watched, and she was easy enough to track through the e-mail she’d signed up with. It was the only way to get close to her without flat out stalking her. He was meant to be a distraction, keep her on her toes and away from the files.